The present disclosure relates to generating a battery charge current for a hybrid electric vehicle with multi-phase motor drive circuits. More particularly, this invention utilizes a switched reluctance motor controller to both drive a switched reluctance motor and to implement the converter circuits of a battery charger.
It is known to those skilled in the art that battery charging circuits and motor drive circuits have many parts in common. Various methods of combining a battery charger and a motor drive controller to eliminate redundant components and thereby reduce cost and weight are utilized in the art. Each of the known methods requires additional components beyond the motor control electronics to implement the battery charging function.
In a typical battery charger, an AC input is rectified to produce a DC voltage. Often, a second stage DC converter is also utilized to produce the correct charging voltage for the battery. In this arrangement, the AC line current has large peaks that reduce the power factor (the ratio of real power to apparent power). This limits the amount of power that can be drawn from the AC input. The AC input currents can be forced to a unity power factor by employing a boost circuit.